Jebel Harun
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Mount Hor (
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
: ,
romanized In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, ...
: ''Hōr hāHār'') is the name given in the
Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Edom Edom (; Edomite language, Edomite: ; , lit.: "red"; Akkadian language, Akkadian: , ; Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom that stretched across areas in the south of present-day Jordan and Israel. Edom and the Edomi ...
in the area south of the
Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...
, and the other is by the
Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...
at the Northern border of
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
. The first Mount Hor is especially significant to the
Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...
, as
Aaron According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was an Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament ...
the high priest, brother of
Moses In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...
, died there.


Mount Hor in Edom

This Mount Hor is situated "in the edge of the land of
Edom Edom (; Edomite language, Edomite: ; , lit.: "red"; Akkadian language, Akkadian: , ; Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom that stretched across areas in the south of present-day Jordan and Israel. Edom and the Edomi ...
" (
Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
) and was the scene of
Aaron According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was an Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament ...
's
divestiture In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment. Divestiture is a ...
, death and burial. The exact location of Mount Hor has been the subject of debate.


Jebel Harun

Based on the writing of
Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
, it has customarily been identified with the ''Jebel Nebi Harun'' ("Mountain of the Prophet Aaron" in Arabic) or simply ''Jebel Harun'', a twin-peaked mountain 4780 feet above sea-level in the Edomite Mountains on the east side of the
Arabah The Arabah/Araba () or Aravah/Arava () is a loosely defined geographic area in the Negev Desert, south of the Dead Sea basin, which forms part of the border between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east. The old meaning, which was in use ...
section of the
Jordan Rift Valley The Jordan Rift Valley, also Jordan Valley ( ''Bīqʿāt haYardēn'', Al-Ghor or Al-Ghawr), is an elongated endorheic basin located in modern-day Israel, Jordan and the West Bank, Palestine. This geographic region includes the entire length o ...
, not far from
Petra Petra (; "Rock"), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu (Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: or , *''Raqēmō''), is an ancient city and archaeological site in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit systems, P ...
. On the summit is a mosque from the Mamluk period, traditionally marking the so-called "
Tomb of Aaron A tomb ( ''tumbos'') or sepulchre () is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called '' immurement'', alth ...
" and built over the remains of a Byzantine church, Chapter 5.2 "The Shrine", pp.36-38 for the mosque. and in the saddle west of it are the remains of a
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
monastery dedicated to Aaron. A memorial church built there in the 5th century became the nucleus of a monastic-pilgrimage centre, referred to in a document from among the Petra Papyri dated to 573, as "the House of our Lord the Saint High-Priest Aaron" outside Petra.


Jebel Madara

Some investigators from the mid-19th until the beginning of the 20th century dissented from this identification: for example,
Henry Clay Trumbull Henry Clay Trumbull (June 8, 1830 – December 8, 1903) was an American clergyman and author. He became a world-famous editor, author, and pioneer of the Sunday School Movement. Early life Henry Clay Trumbull was born on June 8, 1830, at S ...
preferred the ''Jebel Madara'', a peak about 15 miles northwest of 'Ain Kadis (possibly
Kadesh Barnea Kadesh or Qadesh or Cades (, from the root "holy") is a place-name that occurs several times in the Hebrew Bible, describing a site or sites located south of, or at the southern border of, Canaan and the Kingdom of Judah in the kingdom of Israel. ...
), near the modern border between Israel and Egypt. Among others who favor this location are Wilton (''The Negeb'', 1863, pp. 127 ff.), :de:Frants Buhl (''Die Geschichte der Edomiter'', 1893, p. 23), G.B Gray (''A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers'',
270
and Bruno J. L. Baentsch (''Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers'' 900–03 in German as ''Exodus – Leviticus – Numeri'' p. 572.)


Other sites

Mount Uhud Mount Uhud (, ) is a mountain north of Medina, in the Hejazi region of Saudi Arabia. It is high and long. It was the site of the second battle between the Prophets of Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad and the Shirk (Islam), polytheists of his T ...
north of
Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...
has a shrine similar to the mosque on top of Jebel Harun that is connected by tradition to the life of Aaron.Miettunen (2004), 5.1 History of Jabal Hārūn, and other sites connected to Hārūn, p. 36. Another site is in the Sinai, where some 2 km northwest from Saint Catherine's Monastery both Muslim and Christian shrines stand at the top of a hill. Tradition places there the site of the
golden calf According to the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran, the golden calf () was a cult image made by the Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai (bible), Mount Sinai. In Hebrew, the incident is known as "the sin of the calf" (). It is first mentio ...
. The Muslim ''maqam'' marks the place where prophet Harun stood, with his footprint preserved nearby. Muslims from the area used to perform an annual ''
ziyara ''Ziyara(h)'' ( ''ziyārah'', "visit") or ''ziyarat'' (, ''ziyārat'', "pilgrimage"; , "visit") is a form of pilgrimage to sites associated with the Islamic prophet Muhammad, his family members and descendants (including the Shī'ī Imāms), ...
'', a procession to the monastery accompanied by sacrificing of camels, which took place until the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
.


Northern Mount Hor

Another Mount Hor is mentioned in the
Book of Numbers The Book of Numbers (from Biblical Greek, Greek Ἀριθμοί, ''Arithmoi'', , ''Bəmīḏbar'', ; ) is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and complex history; its final f ...
(), defining the northern boundary of the
Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...
. It is traditionally identified as the Nur or Amanus Mountains. In the Second Temple period, Jewish authors seeking to establish with greater precision the geographical definition of the
Promised Land In the Abrahamic religions, the "Promised Land" ( ) refers to a swath of territory in the Levant that was bestowed upon Abraham and his descendants by God in Abrahamic religions, God. In the context of the Bible, these descendants are originally ...
, began to construe Mount Hor as a reference to the Amanus range of the Taurus Mountains, which marked the northern limit of the Syrian plain. Rabbinic writings also declare Amanah a boundary of the land of Israel, saying "What constitutes the Land f Israel and what constitutes he placesoutside the Land f Israel All that which inclines itself and drops down recipitouslyfrom ''Turos Amanus'' and inward (i.e. towards its south) is the Land of Israel. From ''Turos Amanus'' and outward (i.e. towards its north) are lacesoutside the Land f Israel" In the 14th century,
Ishtori Haparchi Ishtori Haparchi (1280–1355), also Estori Haparchi and Ashtori ha-Parhi () is the pen name of the 14th-century Jewish physician, geographer, and traveller, Isaac HaKohen Ben Moses.''Encyclopedia Judaica'' Keter, Jerusalem, 1972, "Estori Ha-Parch ...
attempted to locate the northern Mount Hor and described the great difficulty in finding it. After discovering it, he noted that there was a place at the mountain’s summit called 'Kabutia'. Mount Hor is also called Amanah, and is known as Mount Manus in the Jerusalem Targums, and Umanis in Targum Jonathan. Historical geographer, Joseph Schwarz (1804–1865), sought to establish the bounds of the Amanah mountain range described in rabbinic literature, adding that it is to be identified with Mount Hor, "the northern terminus of
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
", and which, according to him, "extends south of
Tripoli Tripoli or Tripolis (from , meaning "three cities") may refer to: Places Greece *Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece * Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in the Pelasgiotis district, Thessaly, near Larissa ...
as the promontory of ''Mount Hor'' (), called in the period of the Grecian domination ''Theuprosopon'', and now ''Ras al-Shaka'', as far as the Mediterranean, and thence it runs a distance of 12 English miles to the south of Tyre, to the '' Ras al Nakhara'', where its rocky cliffs, which are visible at a great distance, extend into the sea." (reprint of A. Hart: Philadelphia 1850) By this description, Amanah is the southernmost
Anti-Lebanon Mountains The Anti-Lebanon mountains (), also called Mount Amana, are a southwest–northeast-trending, c. long mountain range that forms most of the border between Syria and Lebanon. The border is largely defined along the crest of the range. Most of ...
, equatable with
Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( / ALA-LC: ('Mountain of the Sheikh', ), , ) is a mountain, mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the Lebanon–Syria border, border between Syria and Lebanon a ...
, and is not to be confused with Mount Amanus in southern Turkey.


See also

*
Mount Amana Mount Amana (, a-mā'na, a-mä'na, uh-may'nuh) is an ancient name for the southern Anti-Lebanon Mountains. Geography Mount Amana is at the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, near the source of the river Abana. Paul Haupt identifies this ...
*
Tomb of Aaron A tomb ( ''tumbos'') or sepulchre () is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called '' immurement'', alth ...


References


External links

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